Type: Judgment

Authority: European Authorities: Euopean Union' Court of Justice

Date: 09/24/2020

Subject: The Court affirmed that Directive 2006/54, on the implementation of the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupation, does not preclude legislation of a Member State pursuant to which the recipients of a pension that a State-controlled undertaking is contractually bound to pay them directly and that exceeds certain thresholds set in that legislation are deprived of (an amount withheld from the part of that pension exceeding one of those thresholds and the benefit of a contractually agreed indexation of that pension, even though the percentage of former workers the amount of whose occupational pension has been affected by that legislation is considerably higher among male former workers coming within the scope of that legislation than among female former workers coming within its scope, provided that those consequences are justified by objective factors wholly unrelated to any discrimination based on sex. Moreover the Court affiermed that Directive 2000/78 and Articles 16, 17, 20 and 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union must be interpreted as not precluding legislation of a Member State pursuant to which recipients of a pension that a State-controlled undertaking is contractually bound to pay them directly and that exceeds certain thresholds set in that legislation are deprived of an amount withheld from the part of that pension exceeding one of those thresholds and the benefit of a contractually agreed indexation of that pension, on the sole ground that that legislation affects only recipients above a certain age. Finally, the Court affirmed that Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union does not preclude a Member State’s failure to provide, in its legal system, for a free-standing legal remedy for, primarily, an examination of whether national provisions implementing that right are compatible with EU law, provided that it is possible for such examination to take place indirectly

Parties: NK (Pensions d’entreprise de personnel cadre)

Classification: Freedoms - Art. 16 Freedom to conduct a business - Art. 17 Right to property - Equality - Art. 20 Equality - Art. 21 Non discrimination - Justice - Art. 47 Right to an effective remedy before a tribunal

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